The Ickabog

by J.K. Rowling

the Ickabog’s powers were as great as the imagination of the teller.

Mrs. Dovetail had always tried to make her daughter look, as she put it, “like a little lady,”

King Fred the Fearless, was going to hunt the Ickabog! True, there was no such thing, but it was still dashed fine and noble of him to ride to the other end of the country, in person, to prove it!

Which just goes to show that even sensible men may fail to see a terrible, looming danger.

I suggest we impose an Ickabog tax.

You may think this strange, but Mrs. Beamish was glad to hear Mr. Dovetail cry, because tears can heal a mind, as well as laughter.

of everybody he met and that the one way to get on in life was to be the biggest, the strongest, and the meanest in every group.

Sometimes — I don’t know how — people who live many miles apart seem to realize the time has come to act.

Perhaps we go through a kind of Bornding when we change, for better or for worse. All I know is that countries, like Ickabogs, can be made gentle by kindness, which is why the kingdom of Cornucopia lived happily ever after.